Mentoring Music Teachers

Beginning teachers are a precious resource. They enter school life as adults with passion, energy, and fresh ideas. They are the future of education as older, experienced teachers retire in unprecedented numbers. The support that experienced teachers provide to new and pre-service teachers may be in content knowledge in performance, composition or musicology skills (Board of Studies NSW, 1999) or knowledge of teaching approaches called pedagogical knowledge (Mishra, 2006) or knowledge of students (NESA, 2014). This project critically reflects on the practices of experienced teachers as they mentor members of their departments and pre-service teachers. Many early career teachers do not stay in the profession, leaving because they feel isolated or because teaching has become highly complex with increased accountability (Martinez 2004). Research on mentoring indicates that effective mentoring is more likely to occur when mentors have experience teaching similar populations of students as the mentee, as well as when mentors and mentees work in the same school (Cho, 2011; Desimone et al., 2014). Little research has focused on mentoring music teachers.
Bleach, (2001) offers practical ideas for supporting beginning teachers in a balanced and quality induction program. There is support for the use of mentoring as a vehicle for training aspiring leaders (Brown-Ferrigno & Muth, 2006; Riley, 2009). While time is a significant threat to mentoring relationships (Grossman & Davis, 2012; Riley, 2009), there are benefits in collegial exchange. Mentors can encourage mentees to engage in reflective inquiry, collaborative learning, and peer exchange (Burley & Pomphrey, 2011) but the mentoring process also prompts experienced teachers to reflect. There are also mentoring benefits which include giving insight into their own leadership approach (Hanson & Moir, 2008; Megginson et, 2006).